A stone panel from the 9th floor of the vacant 10-story 3400 Montrose office building crashed to the sidewalk over the weekend, according to a reader report. “Was at Starbucks [Saturday] morning and all was good. An hour later things had fallen apart,” Swamplot’s informant writes. One of the submitted photos shows a policeman looking up at the jumping-off point: a now blank dark space where a panel had been mounted, in the top left corner of the building’s Montrose Blvd. facade.
HISD has now contracted with an industrial hygienist to evaluate the drainage systems, mechanical rooms, and plumbing and electrical systems at Barnett Stadium in an attempt to determine what might have caused 22 band or dance-team members from Stephen F. Austin High School to become mysteriously ill during a football game there Friday night. Several students displayed what appeared to be symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning. Epidemiologists have been interviewing students and school officials “to get information on the whereabouts of the band members within the stadium and collect other health related-factors that could have played a role in the event,” the school district announced. The HISD Athletics Department is expected to announce tomorrow morning whether 2 UIL playoff games scheduled for this week at the 6800 Fairway Dr. location will be moved to a different field.
Photo: Paragon Sports
DRIVING THIS STRETCH OF SHEPHERD WILL NEVER BE THE SAME 
Not for a couple more shrink-swell cycles, at least. A reader heralds the coming cataclysm: “Shepherd between Memorial and I-10 has begun to experience a transfiguration ranking with the most sublime heavenly experiences in the history of mankind: Milling trucks have been scraping the ragged, churned old asphalt in preparation for a new road, a new land, a new Jerusalem! Yes — fresh, smooth, new pavement on Shepherd Drive! Hallelujah!” Photo: Rachel Dvoretzky
A new report from Rice University’s Shell Center for Sustainability includes a few suggestions for the future of Galveston: step all development back from the beach in anticipation of continuing erosion; use a map of the island’s cataloged geohazards to guide where development should go; or permanently abandon the west end of the island entirely. That third recommendation comes with 2 possible natural enforcement mechanisms: a projected future hurricane headed for the western tip of the island, or a combination of sea-level rise and continuing retreat of the shoreline. All 3 scenarios encourage concentrating residents and visitors in the “higher, thicker, wider” East End. A collaboration between earth scientists and the School of Architecture chock-full of charts and diagrams, the Atlas of Sustainable Strategies for Galveston Island includes a series of large-scale design proposals cooked up by Rice architecture students.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: GETTING SERIOUS, NOW THAT OUR AIR CONDITIONED DEFENSES HAVE BEEN BREACHED “A mosquito just bit me on the face. IN MY OFFICE ON THE 6TH FLOOR.” [Susan, commenting on Comment of the Day: Attack of the Giant Vampire Mosquitoes]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: ATTACK OF THE GIANT VAMPIRE MOSQUITOES “My dog was carried off while we were walking at Memorial Park. I lost 6 lbs – not from walking, but from blood loss . . .” [Ellie Mae, commenting on Mosquitoes Reclaim Houston]
CATCHING PIRANHAS AT THE PARK 
Found in the 23-acre lake at Tom Bass Park, just southeast of the intersection of Hwy. 288 and Beltway 8: a red-bellied piranha. That’s the second piranha ever caught in a Texas waterway, and the first verified catch in 28 years. [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Paula Moore
Western West U residents may be fretting about the coyotes hanging around the Bellaire-side train tracks, but Northeast Houston resident Tim Wooddell has an encounter with a larger animal to report: He says a “very large bobcat” paid a visit to his Sunrise Pines back yard one night last week. Not the kind of Bobcat with wheels, the kind with very large paws. At least that’s what the Texas Parks & Wildlife biologist thinks it was; Wooddell still suspects the cat he spotted might actually have been a mountain lion. Wooddell tells Swamplot his visitor “was about twice the size of my Labrador retriever, it was about 7′ long with a long tail, dark brownish gray in color and probably weighed about 175 lbs.” The bobcat may have been more shaken by the encounter than Wooddell; after spotting the homeowner and his dogs, it jumped over the back fence, loosening a few pickets on the way.
For all you suburban wildlife fans out there, here’s the rather extensive (but entertaining) account of the encounter Wooddell sent to Swamplot:
DISTURBING DETAILS FROM THE FLAGSHIP HOTEL DEMO ACCIDENT 
A letter written by Grant MacKay Demolition owner Grant MacKay paints a harrowing picture of the circumstances surrounding the death of 65-year-old company worker Tauelangi Angilau in a collapse at the former Flagship Hotel on April 26th. In the letter, obtained from the city of Galveston by reporter Chris Paschenko, MacKay writes that he yelled for someone to retrieve 2 fuel cans he spotted in an area where a collapse appeared imminent. Two workers responded by running toward a portion of the structure a structural engineer later said “they were not supposed to be anywhere near.”: “’I immediately yelled at them to not go under the second floor slab above, but to get a shovel and reach for them from below (pier level),’ Grant MacKay wrote. ‘They either did not hear me or just ignored me.’ Workers continued to yell at the men to come out from under the slab, Grant MacKay wrote. . . . ‘At that precise moment, the north half of all the west bays began to collapse,’ Grant MacKay wrote. ‘We continued to yell that it was falling. Raphael heard us and jumped off, escaping the collapse. Tau didn’t move.’†[Galveston County Daily News; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Click2Houston
BECAUSE WHERE THERE’S SMOKING, THERE COULD BE FIRE In the aftermath of a West Houston grass fire that scorched 1500 acres of George Bush Park, Mayor Parker and some city council members are considering instituting a temporary smoking ban at all city parks for as long as the drought lasts. This week city council gave its blessing to a ban Parker instituted earlier on open-flame barbecuing and grilling in city parks. A burn ban in county parks — which includes smoking — has been in effect since April. [Houston Chronicle; park fire]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: ENTERTAINMENT VALUE “I hope the driver pays every penny of the damages, minus comedy royalties.” [Sid, commenting on Stuck in Kirby Traffic Again, Not Going Anywhere]
THE 5 PLACES IN HOUSTON WHERE YOU’RE MOST LIKELY TO RUN INTO PEDESTRIANS The intersections of Milam and Dallas, Milam and Prairie, and San Jacinto and Congress St. Downtown; Westheimer and McCue near the Galleria; and Bellaire and Corporate Dr. just inside Beltway 8 in Asiatown rank as the top locations for auto-pedestrian accidents, according to a Chronicle review of city records. A grand total of 2,204 collisions involving cars and people traveling on foot have taken place in Houston since 2008, resulting in a total of 174 pedestrian deaths. The deaths were concentrated differently, “along the U.S. Highway 59 corridor near West Park and along Interstate 45 North and I-10 East,” with 43 percent of them taking place on freeways or major highways. [Houston Chronicle]
STUCK IN MCDONALD’S 
A second family is suing a second area franchisee over playground injuries caused by a metal fastener at a McDonald’s PlayPlace. Last weekend 2-1/2-year-old Alexis Durant caught and gashed her lip on this exposed bolt in a plastic slide in the I-45 feeder road McDonald’s at Pine Dr. in Dickinson, claims attorney Jason Gibson. Last year, another Gibson client sued the owners of the McDonald’s on Uvalde Rd. just south of Woodforest Blvd. after claiming their 6-year-old son cut his head on a screw sticking into a plastic slide tunnel. McDonald’s USA declined to comment on the lawsuits, but issued a statement saying “The safety of our youngest customers is our top priority.” [Click2Houston] Photo: Click2Houston
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE VALUE OF A NEW CHAIN STORE, IN SMALL BILLS “But don’t yall think having a Kohls nearby is well worth the price of a few ducks?” [Joe, commenting on Comment of the Day: Mystery Neighbor for the Meyer Park Walmart?]
